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I am going to be a student in the Netherlands but am looking at doing some traveling in-between. I understand that i can freely travel to any of the Schengen areas as long as I comply with the 90 days in 180 day period.

Once the 180 day period is over, does this get reset and can I then freely travel for again for 90 days, or does this mean 90 days within the entire duration of my study?

I have searched the internet but have not had very much luck with regard to this question.

Giorgio
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Megan Wright
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    It does reset, however it's impossible for anyone to enforce this rule – JonathanReez May 02 '17 at 07:27
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    What kind of study you're going to do in NL? I think if it is academic one then you should/will get residence permit that will remove limits about travelling and staying. – Eugen Martynov May 02 '17 at 08:17
  • I will be going in on an MVV and then once i am there i will receive my VVR residency Permit. with this allow me to travel throughout the schengen areas without having a 90 day rule? – Megan Wright May 02 '17 at 08:47
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    It means 90 days in every 180-day period. Each day your life is part of 180 different overlapping 180-day periods, and you must make sure that in each of all these periods there's at most 90 days you're in a Schengen country other than one you have a long-term visa or residence permit from. – hmakholm left over Monica May 02 '17 at 09:18
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    In other words, at every point in time you must be able to point to 90 days of within the last 180 days where you have either been outside Schengen, or in the Netherlands under the residence permit. – hmakholm left over Monica May 02 '17 at 09:20

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According to the Czech embassy in Washington:

Long-term visa is issued as a Czech national visa with Schengen visa properties, i.e. while allowing to stay on the Territory of the Czech Republic up to 1 year, the Long-term Visa grants a possibility of the stay in the Schengen area for a maximum of 90 days within a half-year.

This tells us that your Dutch visa is basically an ordinary Schengen visa when staying outside the Netherlands. Which means you can simply use the regular 90/180 days Schengen rules to calculate how long you're allowed to travel in other Schengen countries. So the answer is a clear yes, the 180 day period does reset over time.

In reality it's nearly impossible for anyone to really enforce this rule since there aren't any systematic border checks within the Schengen area. So it's up to you if you stay honest with the system or not.

JonathanReez
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  • Internal border checks can and do happen at land borders, especially by Switzerland. However, since crossings between Schengen countries are not recorded, be it electronically or using stamps, they still cannot really enforce it – Crazydre May 21 '17 at 14:52
  • @Crazydre yes, it's basically impossible for anyone to prove you haven't just taken a day trip. I'm not even sure why they have that rule there. – JonathanReez May 21 '17 at 14:55
  • Basically because you're supposed to get a residence permit in the Schengen country where you actually live, so that if originally living in Italy but moving to the Netherlands, you actually obtain a Dutch permit as opposed to just living there on the Italian one – Crazydre May 21 '17 at 14:57
  • @Crazydre yes, of course, but IMO rules which are impossible to enforce are a waste of time – JonathanReez May 21 '17 at 16:02
  • The rule is not impossible to enforce, it's just not systematically enforced. Police could investigate someone's movements through other means besides passport stamps and border database records to develop evidence supporting an accusation that someone has violated the rule. – phoog May 21 '17 at 19:58